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2018 (4) TMI 1968 - SC - Indian LawsConviction based upon a retracted confession - circumstantial evidence - whether the High Court was right in dismissing the appeals preferred by the Appellants-Accused? - HELD THAT:- The law is well settled that each and every incriminating circumstance must be clearly established by reliable and clinching evidence and the circumstances so proved must form a chain of events from which the only irresistible conclusion about the guilt of the Accused can be safely drawn and no other hypothesis against the guilt is possible. In a case depending largely upon circumstantial evidence, there is always a danger that conjecture or suspicion may take the place of legal proof. The court must satisfy itself that various circumstances in the chain of events must be such as to Rule out a reasonable likelihood of the innocence of the Accused. When the important link goes, the chain of circumstances gets snapped and the other circumstances cannot, in any manner, establish the guilt of the Accused beyond all reasonable doubt. The court has to be watchful and avoid the danger of allowing the suspicion to take the place of legal proof for sometimes, unconsciously it may happen to be a short step between moral certainty and legal proof. There is a long mental distance between "may be true" and "must be true" and the same divides conjectures from sure conclusions. The Court in mindful of caution by the settled principles of law and the decisions rendered by this Court that in a given case like this, where the prosecution rests on the circumstantial evidence, the prosecution must place and prove all the necessary circumstances, which would constitute a complete chain without a snap and pointing to the hypothesis that except the Accused, no one had committed the offence, which in the present case, the prosecution has failed to prove. Both the courts below have erred in relying that part of the statement which can be termed as confession which were given to the police officer while they were in custody and it will be hit by Section 26 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and only that part of the statement which led to the discovery of various materials would be permissible. Hence, in the absence of any other material evidence against the Appellants-Accused, they cannot be convicted solely on the basis of evidence of last seen together with the deceased. The judgment and order dated 23.11.2009 passed by the High Court is set aside - Appeal allowed.
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